
Glass _u£_5i3_ 
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' AN ORATION 



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DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE lEVING LYCEUM, 



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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 



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ON THE EVENING OF 



^wwLJjmi^'^m^ SB^ dm.^.^.Bm9 



EDA\^A^RD HA.RTI.EY. 




f iDasljington : 

HENRY POLKINHORN, PRINTER. 

^ 1855. 

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AN ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE IRVING LYCEUM, 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 



ON THE ETXKIN6 OF 



^WlKJJMl^im^ ^9 :fl.SB.^w&9 



EDAV^i^LllD HARTLEY. 

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(;-^ U.S.A. 



J>f WA5: 



tDa0l)tngton : 

HENRY POLKINHORN, PRINTER, 

1855. 



nOITASlO VLK 






COKHESFONDENCE. 



Washington, September 26, 1856. 

Edward Hartley, Esq.: — 
Dear Sir : — According to a resolution passed at a meeting of the Irving Lyceum, I 

was instructed respectfully to request for publication, a copy of the Oration delivered by 
you on the 3d of July last. 

I am, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

EDWIN JAMES, Secretary. 



Portland, Me., Qctober 10, 1883. 
E. James, Esq.: — 

Sir : — Your note reached me a few days since. Having received in addition, the per- 
sonal solicitations of so many of your members, I do not feel at liberty to decline your 
request. 

Yours, respectfully, 

EDWARD HARTLEY. 



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ORATIO 



There arc certain starting points in history, when the mind forsaking 
its old channels, turns into new directions and aims at new ends. There 
are eras in the world's progress of great achievements and heroic courage, 
eras of high thought and stainless patriotism, which shape the destinies 
of the future, and assume grander proportions as time rolls on. If we 
could lift the curtain that veils the future, and see the glories so faintly 
shadoAved forth in our times, we could trace the heavenly rays which illu- 
mine its dim seen aisles, to some era, when the mind, casting aside tho 
dross of centuries, expanded its Avings for a loftier flight. High among 
these stands the era of American Independence. At first, it only marked 
the birth of a new nation, convulsed by the incoherence of its parts, by 
the conflicting powers of the state and general governments, palsied with- 
in and without, and it was not until the adoption of the federal constitu- 
tion that America developed those elements of moral grandeur, on which 
our present prosperity and the hopes of the future are founded. She then 
stood before the world, the solution of the enigma which has puzzled the 
statesmen of all ages, whether the masaes could govern themselves. In- 
significant at firsD, she began to agitate the world with her spirit, she bo- 
came a refuge from oppression, the home of liberty, the guiding star of 
the future. 

Whence did our forefathers derive the patience of labor and of danger, 
that led them through the war of independence ? Whence did they gain 
the mental and moral training that enabled them to fuse the jarring states 
into a compact whole, and to leave behind them such an example of un- 
selfish wisdom ? In the colonial warfare against the French in Canada, 
and the ceaseless conflicts with the Indian, our ancestors gained hardi- 
hood and military skill. In the unending struggles against Parliamentary 
aggression,, they gained their experience and political knowledge. The 
pen of the historian has not emblazoned our colonial achievements, the 
poet has lingered but for a moment upon our early legends, and the orator 
draws his inspiration from the buried ages of other civilizations. The 
sands of time have buried much of our colonial history, the brilliancy of 
our subsequent career has outshone the remainder, and it is only in tra- 



dition and ballad that its main hllfcry lives. Where will you find cour- 
age and self-reliance like that of the Pilgrims, who left the comforts of a 
European home for an unkno^Yn shore ? They sailed with an almost cer- 
tain death before them; they knew the savage lurked behind every tree, 
that winter reigned for five months of the year — that the soil itself was 
ungrateful. But they went to that bleak coast to live in civil and religious 
liberty ; they left the world not as the anchorites of the middle ages, at 
the bidding of a sombre fancy, nor as the Crusaders, who marched madly 
to Jerusalem to die under the walls of the holy city. No glory or fanati- 
cism spurred on the Puritan; leaving property, friends, kindred, and even 
hope behind, they pursued the gloomy voyage. Their existence in the 
New World was a constant struggle. The bieak wilderness teemed with 
foes — the Freich hemmed them in on theNorth — a stormy sea on tlie East. 
The first winter in America cost them half their number, yet they perse- 
vered. Then came the arms of the French and the Canadian savages ; 
the massacres at Schenectady and Deerfield, the destruction of their crops, 
the long captivity on the St. Lawrence. The ebbing tide of Indian vio- 
lence lose again and again ; the midnight war-whoop startled the frontier- 
man ; he saw by the light of his blazing cabin, the massacre go on ; he 
heard the shrieks of his wife as the hatchet sank deep into her brain ; he 
saw his children fall under the scalping-knife ; property, kindred, all, all 
was gone ; death stood before him ; he welcomed it as a friend. The life- 
tide gushed from his ebbing veins and blended with the frozen current of 
his slaughtered family. He died with a smile upon his lips. At early 
morn the villagers laid the mangled bodies in a common grave, and turned 
with heavy hearts from the smouldering cabin. The colonists went into 
the fields with arms in their hands — they went to church with arms — dan- 
ger was all around them — no one knew Avhere or how great it was. The 
Southern colonies had their trials, the settlement at Jamestown was broken 
up by pestilence ; the Indian was as merciless there as in theNorth — alike 
they struggled, alike were successful. 

During tliis epoch, misunderstandings often arose with the mother- 
country. Sir Edmund Andros played the tyrant in New England ; the 
charter of Connecticut was annulled ; obnoxious governors stifled the pop- 
ular feeling in New York and Virginia, and their colonial privileges were 
cancelled ; but the passage of the stamp act aroused a general resistance. 
Then came the State-house massacre, the extension of the Canadian boun- 
dary, the arrival of Gage at Boston. The prayers of two Congresses 
were spurned from the throne, and soon the whole country was startled 
by the combat of Lexington. Insolent troops were quartered upon the 



inhabitants of Boston, her streets bristled with bayonets, the British 
Squadron with shotted cannon ranged along her wharves, the Old South 
Church, founded by Pilgrim hands, was a barrack for soldiery, and the 
oaths and drunken revels of an English regiment defiled the altar of God. 
But the citizens were not overawed. Hancock and Otis, the Adamses 
and Quincy, met night after night at Fanueil Hall. The mother sen* 
her only son to the battle, the minister left his sacred desk and marched 
at the head of his flock ; the farmer left his plough, the artizan his work- 
shop, the blacksmith his anvil, and joined the gathering army. The 
tidings of Bunker Hill flashed through the land, and the torch of indepen- 
dence was lighted at the burning of Charlestown. 

It is not in the revolution that the wisdom, the genius, or the patriot- 
ism of America is best displayed. There have been other Yorktowns, 
other Bunker Hills. Other nations have fought against greater odds, 
other empires have been rent asunder as extensive, and other leaders, after 
enjoying unlimited power, exchanged dignity and office for the retirement 
of private life. I would not undervalue our revolutionary achievements, 
nor lessen the glory that lingers around their sacrifices and their dangers; 
but I would not make the main glory of our forefathers depend on the 
sword. Our great trials v/ere after the revolution. Independence brought 
fresh difficulties. The States clashed with each other and Congress was 
powerless. The treasury was empty, the army dwindled to eighty men, 
the soldiers of the revolution 'were unpaid, and the navy rotted in their 
harbors. The States "would neither contribute to the support of the gen- 
eral government, or grant it the power of doing so. Without any coercive 
authority, without any means of discharging the liabilities of the govern- 
ment, or even of paying its own ofiicers, — had the Continental Congress 
lasted a few years longer, the sword of revolution would have cut the 
Gordian knot. It might seem unpatriotic in the States to refuse the just 
powers of government — but jealousy of these very powers brought on the 
revolution, and they could hardly be expected to yield what had cost so 
much to uphold ; and it was believed that the powers ceded would be worth 
more than the protection gained. 

The religious faith of the colonies differed ; how could the Puritans of 
Massachusetts mingle with the Episcopalians of Virginia, or the Quakers 
of Pennsylvania with the Catholics of Maryland ? Nature too seemed to 
set an insuperable bar to the Union ; the commercial habits of New Eng- 
land contrasted too strongly with the agricultural pursuits of the more 
Southern states. But the distresses of the past called for action ; the 
gulf of financial discredit yawned at their feet, and the sacrifices of the 



revolution seemed likely to be \Strin the comiilsions of the future. The 
Constitution is our highest achievement. [Our fathers have not worn the 
borrowed robes of other lawgivers, nor did they saddle upon us the worn 
out principles of other times. The details miglit have come from other 
ages ; but the central ideas, the life and force cf the instrument, sprang up 
in our colonial existence. American liberty sprang from the American 
soil. The germ was planted by the Pilgrims, it was watered by their 
tears and blood ; through all their sacrifices and all their dangers, it struck 
its roots deeper into the ground ; the axe of intolerance was raised against 
it, but the uplifted arm was palsied. There are those who derive their 
liberty from Magna Charta. But that famous instrument was wrung 
from a lawless monarch, neither by or for the people. The nobility 
brought on the compact of Runnemede, and built the reign of aristocracy 
upon the ruins of kingly power. The great charter only strengthened 
the nobles and clergy, and relieved them alone from feudal burdens, while 
they doled out a miserable pittance to the strong arms which upheld their 
haughty banners. For centuries, as far as the people were concerned, 
the Magna Charta was waste paper. Though it relieved the towns from 
regal exaction, though it rendered the courts of law independent of the 
monarch, it never freed one vassal, or encouraged the alienation of land. 
The bulk of the English people were tied to the soil in serfdom — the Saxon 
was a slave in the land of his fathers — the Magna Charta never broke his 
chain. Yet it was a great step in advance, for it fixed the supremacy of 
law and the municipal privileges of the towns. Its influence here is but 
limited ; for the very basis upon which it rested, the very aristocratic as- 
cendancy it strengthened, the very church privileges it protected, were 
the prime causes that sped the Mayflower across the unknown wave. Do 
not imagine that our ancestors disdained the experience of other countries. 
Said Mr. Bancroft, in his address before the New York Historical Society, 
" our arts come from Greece, our jurisprudence from Rome, our maritime 
code from Russia ; Eri gland taught us the s^'stem of representative govcrn- 
ment — the noble Republic of the United Provinces be(j[ucathed to us in the 
world of thought, the great idea of the toleration of all opinions, in the 
world of action, the prolific principle of federal union." But the grand 
features of our Constitution grew up here. There have been republics 
which attained the highest eminence of pride and power, republics foun- 
ded by giant minds, ruled by a wisdom that is the wonder of the world, 
republics whose commerce has whitened the sea, and whose banner waved 
over the most distant nations ; but neither their patriots or statesmen ever 
conceived the idea of universal suffrage, or universal eligibility to oflice. 



Where did the system of popular education spring up but in New England? 
Holland has had its provinces, Switzerland its cantons, but what nation 
ever had a federal union like ours. Religious toleration has been allowed 
in many states, under severe disabilities, but America first separated the 
church from the government. The English press has long been free, but 
here the largest liberty compatible with public safety is allowed it. These 
are the distinctive features of American Government ; these are its highest 
boast, these are the principles which, from the smallest beginnings, have 
grown to colossal might ; these are the principles which will guide for 
ages, the interests of humanity, civilization, and the world. Removed 
from the dross of European politics and the curse of feudal institutions, 
freed from the blight of a court and aristocracy, living in a land where 
labor is honored and thought is free, a heavier responsibility rests upon 
us than man has yet borne. If we are only true to ourselves, if we only 
preserve our inheritance, and hearken to the warnings echoed from age to 
age through the dim distances of the past, we will leave behind us a coun- 
try such as the world has not seen. 

We do not live for ourselves alone, but for the world. The ties of 
nationality are artificial, but a common origin and a common manhood 
binds the human race. We cannot isolate ourselves, when the wings of 
commerce spur their rapid flight, when space shrinks into nothingness 
before steam, and thought travels lightning-like upon the wires. We can- 
not now mark out a few square miles, and bestow all our love upon it, for 
the name of a citizen is swallowed up in that of a man. National jeal- 
ousies are fading out, and the influence of commerce, the railroad and tel- 
egraph, are weaving a web about the civilized world which cannot be 
broken, and which grows stronger and stronger as science progresses. 
The time is past, when civilization and the arts were shut up within the 
walls of a single city, whose heart felt no sympathetic throb for the dark- 
ened world beyond. The plunder of Gaul, the pillage of Asia Minor, 
or the desolation of Egypt, would scarcely be felt at Rome or Athens. 
But an insurrection at Paris, a riot at Manchester, or a failure at New 
York, will shake the political and commercial world to the centre, and 
its efiects will be felt on the banks of the Ganges and the shores of the 
Pacific. The great hearts of civilized nations beat in unison, and the 
links that bind them together cannot be snapped without a fearful recoil. 
Thus is the human race rapidly becoming a brotherhood ; thus is war be- 
coming unnatural and impossible ; and the civilized nations, with clasped 
hands and heart answering heart, are advancing to the fulfilment of their 
high mission — the regeneration of the world. 



8 

Our independence marked .i^av era in history. Before it, the worhl 
poemed to have grown grey -with age, the nations slumbered in darkness. 
In every department of purely intellectual labor, the past was out-dazzled, 
but there was a void somewhere ; there seemed to be a limit to political 
progress, and the ages seemed to revolve in a circle. The revolution 
scarcely ceased, when a mightier upheaval burst forth. The phrensied 
people wreaked a terrible revenge upon their luckless rulers, and pursued 
a phantom-liberty, which eluded their grasp and mocked their highest 
efforts. They fell exhausted by their own vices, but the misrule of the 
past was impossible. Tlie knell of feudalism had rung, and the royal 
families liad sunk below the people in intelligence and virtue. Mirabeau 
had taught the masses their rights ; Napoleon had shown them what kings 
were, and how they were made. The volcano only slept, the lava tide of 
revolution still boiled beneath the throne, and, in one grand eruption, swept 
off the institution of a thousand years of shame ; but the Gaul and the 
Cossack rolled back the fiery flood, and all was dark again. These efforts 
have not been fruitless. No event has ever occurred, but which, when 
tune lifts the mist from our clouded vision, is seen to tend to the ultimate 
progress of the human race. But here we need not linger. We can look 
down the gorgeous future and behold its dazzling beauty. The curses of 
absolutism no longer blight the nations, the earth no longer re-echoes the 
cries of her groaning children, armed battalions no longer crush the weak, 
and obstruct the march of mind at the point of the bayonet. Nature un- 
folds her secrets to the gaze of man, and the era of true liberty and hap- 
piness rolls on. You may call this a delusion, a triumph of the imagina- 
tion over the reason. You may point me to those giant empires, founded 
on the blasted hopes of their subjects. But the darkest hour is just be- 
fore the daAvn. It is true that political misrule keeps down every noble 
aspiration, every exalted sentiment. The Russian bayonet gleams on the 
plain of Warsaw, the lance of the Austrian huzzar is mirrowed in the 
swift-rolling Danube; and three great capitals, where the destinies of the 
Old World so often centred, are held by an Allied banditti. The same 
sun shines upon Attica as when she boasted the laurels of conquest and 
the pride of intellect ; the same dreamy haze envelopes the Italian sunset, 
the same blending of air, earth, and sea, in mystic marriage ; the Apen- 
nines still look upon the glittering spires of the Eternal city ; the white 
Soracte still wears far above his vine-clad sides an autumnal crown of snow, 
but all else is dead ; the crown of Petrarch has withered — the spirit of 
Rienzi is no more. The Algerian hunter profanes the ashes of Tarquin's 
conquerors, and, where Constantino first raised the cross, the Koran is 
upheld by Christian hands. 



But is there no hope, are not feudal institutions crumbling, is not edu- 
cation spreading everywhere ; is not commerce extending her giant arms, 
is not progress sweeping off the monopolies, and breaking the fetters which 
bind the masses ? Does not the increased facility for travel bring an in- 
creased interchange of ideas and develope new thoughts ? How can the 
European tread the streets of New York, without seeing ^t a glance the 
superiority of our political system ? Besides, the fires of revolution never 
die out, and each successive republic improves upon the last : what a con- 
trast between the outbreaks of 1792 and 1848 — between Mirabeau and 
Lamartine, Robespierre and Cavaignac ? What may we not expect in 
the future, when four empires are destroying each oth,er before Sebastopol, 
weakening their thrones, and strengthening the hands of the people by a 
causeless war. Already has the spirit of reform been aroused in England, 
the press clamor against aristocratic oppression, and the cry of reform is 
echoed in the House of Commons. But I can dwell here no longer. The 
Old World lives in the past, the spoils of time are hers ; but the New 
World has a nobler destiny. The history of Europe is already written 
upon her soil the infancy of the race was cradled, but on America depends 
the great interests of the future. 

Much of our progress is due to the character of the Anglo-Saxon race . 
In every historic period there has been some dominant people, to whom 
was entrusted the guidance of the nations, and the pre-eminence in arts 
and arms. At the dissolution of the Roman empire. Southern Europe 
had stagnated — genius and virtue were alike dead within her. But bar- 
barian blood infused new life into her worn out veins, and prevented her 
further degradation. Society was rebuilt upon a new basis, and new states 
arose from the chaos of Gothic nationalities. But where Italian colonies 
had not taken root and Celtic barbarism prevailed, the natives were ex- 
terminated, andthe Northern conquerors formed, not, as in more Southern 
nations, the governing class alone, but the great body of the people. 
While Attila was leading his hungry millions through the forests of Ger- 
many, the Angles and the Saxons were called from their barren homes 
to the milder shores of England. The natives of the soil were swept 
away before them, and the miserable remnant were shut up in the moun- 
tain-fastnesses of Wales, where attack was impossible, Kindred to their 
Danish masters, undisturbed in the occupancy of the soil by the Norman 
conquest, the descendants of the Saxons form the bulk of the English 
people. Hardy, stern, tenacious of their rights, and absorbing all inferior 
races, they have played a prominent part in the history of the last two 
hundred years. When Europe writhed under kingly usurpation, the 



10 

Anglo-Saxon had a rational libertv, dimmed, it is true, by the overawing 
power of aristocracy, by the hiarousness of their social system, by a state 
religion, forced upon a nonconformist people, by a dynasty alien by blood, 
name, and language; yet the essence of reform was there, and the germ 
was putting forth its branches, and soon overshadowed the unsightly pile, 
by which at first it was hidden. To this race America owes her regenera- 
tion. The French established an empire in Canada, but brought neither 
civilization or commerce to America ; it was an Indian empire ; the red 
man owned the sway of Louis, and from Acadie to Lake Superior, the 
savages were led to massacre by officers of the French army. Their 
schemes of conquest were a magnificent failure, their grand conceptions 
were thwarted, and the splendor of their victories only heralded their fall. 
As when the sun, before sinking into his rayless couch, fringes the western 
sky with the gorgeous hues of an autumnal sunset, and shooting up, through 
the fissures of the broken clouds, the molten gold of his expiring radiance, 
filling the atmosphere with a flood of light ; so the genius of Montcalm put 
forth its highest energies &nd loftiest heroism, before the fall of Quebec 
ended his hopes and his life. The Spanish race might own tracts more 
thickly settled, with mightier resources and boundless wealth ; but these 
very advantages withered their energies and sapped their life blood. The 
Spaniard might perform deeds of as lofty daring, he might display equal 
talent, as high genius, as much energy and hardihood; but these qual- 
ities shone with a steadier, purer, and nobler light in the Anglo-Saxon. 
In the Spaniard, they burst forth like the sun in the tempest, dazzling in 
its effulgence, but soon clouded and hidden. The hand of Cortez over- 
threw an intelligent empire ; he climbed the steep ladder of the Cordilleras 
in defiance of nature's arm and the Slascalan arrow; he dethroned, single- 
handed, the monarch, the god of the Aztecs, in the face of his kneeling 
millions ; Balboa braved the miasma of the Isthmus ; by painful effort and 
unflincing determination, he stood upon the summit of the Andes, gazed 
upon the Pacific at his feet, and saw the immortality of his discovery 
written in its quiet waters. What privations and what dangers did not 
Pizarro undergo, when, rumor-guided, he sailed from a scarcely discovered 
shore to the conquest of Peru ! De Soto felt his way through the track- 
less wilds of the Gulf coast, where mortal feet had never before trodden, 
where tlie very grass beneath him, revelling in the luxuriant beauty of 
tropical vegetation, dripped the venom of the rattlesnake and concealed 
the springing panther ; where the sun distilled pestilence from the pal- 
metto-swamps, and the wind brought death upon its wings, though laden 
with the breath of flowers. The Spanish race has performed deeds of 



11 

heroism, of lofty genius and self-sacrificing denial; but it is the fitful 
glare of a rocket, -which blazes for a moment and then fades into dark- 
ness. Intrigue, avarice, and corruption mark its footsteps, and the South 
American republics, instead of exulting in a glorious youth and noble 
manhood, are bowed with age and writhe under a legacy of sin. Moral 
principle, the love of justice and individual liberty, belong to th'e Anglo- 
Saxon ; these the Spaniard never knew. Without them a state may blaze 
like a meteor, but never shine like a star. Virtue is the corner-stone of 
free governments — liberty without virtue is impossible. Virtue is the 
foundation, of our constitution, and when we leave that hallowed land- 
mark, the ship of state "that moved upon the waters like a thing of life," 
mastless, sail-less, and dismantled, will be engulfed by the raging waves. 
While Saxon- America advanced steadily in all the elements of power and 
nationality, Spanish America dwindled away. The home government 
sucked the life blood, and gorged itself with the riches of the enfeebled 
continent ; but instead of a healthful draught, she drained a poisoned cup. 
The land of Ferdinand, Isabella, and Charles V — the arbiter of Europe 
and Queen of Ocean — became a plaything of French ambition and English 
jealousy. When Napoleon, in his crusade against the old monarchies, 
declared that "he could not leave Spain behind," the contest was fought 
with English arms and English money ; the heroism of the Cid lingered 
only at Saragossa and Baylen, and the most despicable cowardice directed 
the councils of the ministers, and reigned in the camp. The Spanish race 
belongs to the past — its destiny is fulfilled. Its power, its energy and 
glory are dead, and the sceptre of empire has fallen from its nerveless 
hands. 

The Anglo-Saxon race exists among us in a modified form : the American 
and Englishman physically, intellectually, and socially, are not the same. 
Celtic and Teutonic blood flows in our veins, adding to the stern and un- 
yielding Anglo-Saxon the genial warmth and vivacity of the one, and the 
persevering and laborious thought of the other. The Anglo-American 
race, with the blood of all civilized nations in its veins, is the only type of 
the unity of mankind. The other races are parts — this is a whole, exalted 
by the blended virtues of its component members. What shore or what 
sea has not been the witness of Anglo-Saxon prowess ! See India with her 
golds, her diamonds, her cotton and her rice fields, rioting in the luxuri- 
ance of nature, fragrant with the breath of spices — and from Ceylon to 
the Himmaleys, the Saxon merchant reigns. Go to the stormy cape, that 
opened to the adventurous Diaz the gateway of the East — and there you 
see the British banner. Fly to Labrador or Melville island, whci c cici- 



12 

nal frost sends down her childrei^b float upon a waveless sea, where the 
polar bear and the Esquimaux divide a heritage of snow, where the aurora- 
borealis flashes from the sky, mimicking the fading sunlight, and out- 
shining the pallid moon — and there you find the Anglo-Saxon within eight 
hundred miles of the Pole. His watch-towers are on every continent — his 
flag floats from every urrclaimed shore. At Gibraltar he glares with 
greedy eyes at the commerce of Southern Europe ; at Malta he shelters 
his fleets, and advances his out posts nearer to the East ; at Aden he en- 
trenches himself between Egypt and India. " The sun never sets upon 
his dominions ;" as it rises upon Canada in unclouded splendor, the myriad 
constellations of the Southern hemisphere shed their holy light upon the 
Australian tent ; when the level beams of departing day linger amid the 
countless branches of the Banyan, the lark springs from the English 
meadow, and ofiers the incense of her thick-warbled notes to the rising 
sun. Unabsorbed by any inferior race, the Anglo-Saxon rejects the 
blood of his half civilized neighbors, and, in haughty exclusiveness, locks 
up the current of his lifctide within his own veins. But the son is mightier 
than the sire ; the Anglo-American race is gifted with still greater energy. 
Its free institutions, its greater public and private virtue, the hard school 
of necessity in which it was reared, have laid a surer foundation of pro- 
gress and happiness. On every side it crowds out the Indian — in Mexico, 
it presses the Spanish American and Aztec — ^at Panama and Nicaragua it 
obtains a foothold. The organized bands that threaten the Captain Gen- 
eral of Cuba, are but the vanguard of the Anglo-American race. The 
Anglo-Saxon may have passed the noon of his glory — he probably has-^ 
but his offspring, planted upon so many shores, will excel the parent stem. 
Upon this continent the triumphs of the future will be won, and Ave will 
be the chief actors in the drama. Without feudal fetters to cramp our 
elasticity, Avithout a state religion to stamp upon our brow the seal of uni* 
formity, without the time-honored curses that blight the aspirations of the 
Old World, Ave Avill march on and on to the emancipation of this continent. 
The Spaniard in North America, at least, has failed in his mission — 'his in- 
heritance is passing aAvay. The shadows of time may lengthen before 
the consummation takes place; but take place it must, and this Avhole con- 
tinent for ages at least, will be the home of the Anglo-American race. 
That race is slowly forming ; tlie Celt, the Teuton, and the Saxon are 
bubbling and seething in the great cauldron, from Avhich it is to be evol- 
ved. It is not in Avar that its great victories Avill be won. 

The age of brute force is fading away— the era of intellectual effort 
draAvs nigh. The SAvord is the weakest Aveapon in the hands of a ruler. 



13 

The monarch upon his throne, surrounded, though he may be, by a forest 
of gleaming bayonets, trembles at the curses of a free press and the mur» 
murs of an outraged peopls, more than at the roar of hostile artillery or 
the foe of a thousand banners. The journalist in his garret wields a 
mightier power than the royal robber ; the man, who makes a new discov- 
ery in science, or shortens the time of labor, stands higher than the 
conquerer, though the existence of a state hangs on his single will. The 
energies once employed in the wars of ambition, the pursuit of civil 
honor, and the speculative philosophy of other ages, are turned to the so- 
cial improvement of man and the development of national resources. La- 
bor, which, by the blasting influence of the feudal system, was left to serfs 
and cattle, now claims the attention of the cultivated mind, and is the 
noblest occupation of the freeman. Philosophy stoops from her dizzy 
heights, and smiles upon the laborer at the plough. Science abridges 
his daily toil, and literature cheers his homely fireside. And as nature 
unfolds her secrets and opens her hidden mysteries to our gaze, the hu- 
man race grows, more and more, to the dignity and stature of an exalted 
manhood. Methinks I see America fifty years from now, stretching from 
sea to sea : the wilds of Oregon and Utah are peopled by myriads of the 
Anglo-American race ; the telegraph and the railroad cross the great 
heart of the continent ; the steamboat ploughs the waters of the Colorado 
and Gila, and upon their banks majestic cities rise ; by the influence of 
commerce and peace, the Western wilderness blooms with the harvest, and 
in the deep glen where theApache hid the plunder of his midnight foray, 
the school-house rears its head ; the mighty tide of emigration flows south- 
ward ; villages spring up in its track ; it goes on and on through every 
nook and corner of the New World, till, in a firm hand, the Anglo-Ameri- 
can holds an undivided sceptre. 

Nations die like men, audit is true in politics as in religion, that death 
is but a new life of higher gifts and nobler aims. The past is filled with 
the wreck of civilizations. All along the shores of time, we see the shat- 
tered remnants of notional grandeur. Where are the empires that have 
risen and flourished near the Mediterranean Sea? Each thought itself im- 
mortal, each immagined that its trophied banners would wave over the re- 
motest posterity. Their kings rejoiced over an immortal youth of fame; 
their bards imagined that the echo of their melody would thrill the harp 
strings of all coming time; their orators reveled in the applause of unborn 
generations. But they flitted like a dream over the stage of existence, 
and vanished. To our imperfect vision, America's fall is not revealed. 



14 

Wc see no symptoms of her d^gjuction. Foes may menace us within and 
without ; the hydra-head of disunion may hiss in the Capitol, and the crie^ 
of fanaticism may echo in the halls of Congress ; fratricidal strife may 
bathe our fields in blood, and give our cities to the flames ; but neither a 
dissolution of this Union nor a civil war, can overturn the broad foundations 
of our free institutions. The impulse we have received from the hand of 
Providence can be stayed by no earthly arm. Calamity may check our 
present prosperity — it cannot destroy our ultimate growth. Do not think 
that the labors, the prayers and tears of our forefathers, will produce a 
blighted harvest ; that two hundred years of danger and suffering have 
been borne in vain. We are to regenerate this continent, and, by the in- 
fluence of our example, overturn the Bastilcs of European oppression ; till 
then we are safe. Our republic may be divided, but no king can ever 
reign here, nor can a Caesar or Cromwell arise. At the first rumor of a 
European invasion, the swords of the severed states would start from their 
scabbards and the invaders be driven into the sea. But when our race 
is run, we must fall like the empires before us, and give place to still higher 
influences and still more exalted principles. 

History is but a marshaling of solemn pageants, and the ages mark 
the order of the mighty processions. But, uninfluenced by the wreck of 
empires and civilations, thought runs its immortal course. Like the coral 
insects, who, since time began, have built from the ocean's bed their tiny 
structure and then die, replaced by a new generation, who add their mite 
to the fabric and perish, till now the layers rise from the deep, and form 
reefs and islands, — so the generations of men perish, each establishing 
some grand truth upon which the next generation builds, till, in the long 
succession of ages, receive from them the foundation of our liberty, civil- 
ization, and progress. Every link in the great chain of events is essen- 
tial, and the most trifling circumstance often fixes the great discovery. 
The course of progress is ever onward, and though races and empires 
have their dotage, the world never stands still, but marches on Avith an 
unfaltering step, and in that weary journey, one by one, it throws off its 
errors. Once it seemed to roll back, when Gothic legions crushed the 
genius of Italy, and consigned to forgetfulness the literature and language 
of ancient days. But it proved an advance, and the incubus of Roman 
power fell from the groaning world. The torch of Christianity shed new 
light upon the affairs of men, and offeredto their ambition higher achieve- 
ments and sublimer ends. Order emerged from chaos, and a new civili- 
zation arose from the ashes of the old. But this civilization was clogged 



15 

by the errors of its youth ; and while in science, literature, and religion, 
the mind was free in politics, it grasped at truth with fettered hands. 
With the settlement at Plymouth and Jamestown, the first faint streaks 
of grey in the political heavens hetokened the coming dawn. The light 
of a higher civilization and a more exalted humanity, shone from afar. 
The principles of liberty, freed from feudal shackles, from the haughty 
exclusiveness of ancient democracy, from the aristocratic repubKcanism 
of Venice and Holland, rose like Venus from the waves. Freed by the 
revolution from the imperfections of European governments, placed by the 
Constitution on an enduring basis, sustained by this generation as a sacred 
inheritance, they have regenerated North America and are battling against 
intolerance everywhere. 



